For those of you who are still a bit distracted, let’s call this story to attention, LINC style.

“Character counts!” calls the leader.

Many in the audience of LINC staff, settling into a school auditorium for some training, call back the familiar response:

“All the time!”

“All the time . . .!” sounds the leader again. It’s LINC’s Program Specialist Carl Wade, demonstrating an attention-getting tactic used with kids in classrooms.

Everyone’s locked in now. They answer in full chorus:

“CHARACTER COUNTS!!”

This, by the way, is no trite call-and-response exercise.

Character Counts is foundational. Speaking the program’s name invokes the six pillars of moral living that LINC’s team members learn and carry into their Caring Communities.

It guides the lessons and meaningful moments they share with children in their classrooms every day.

But now, back to class:

- - -

“Everybody close your eyes.”

This is how Wade pulls everyone into a mindset to learn and embrace the fifth pillar — Caring.

Think of a child, he says. See the face of that child — one that was difficult. One that tested your patience. Or troubled you with worry.

Ne’Kye Sheppard, one of the many LINC Caring Communities Coordinators in the audience, sees a 10-year-old girl in the darkness of her closed eyelids — a “cold-shouldered” child who was shutting herself off from staff and schoolmates.

Edina Von Hofman and her lead staff, Jo Gonzalez, think of one of their fifth-grade boys — a child too often in conflict with others, who was struggling fo follow directions, who seemed not to listen.

Those children and others are held in the consciousness of the room for a moment of prolonged silence. Then Wade says, “open your eyes.”

They see Wade standing before them, now holding up a giant, red paper heart.

Who were you thinking of? Wade asks.

One by one, many of the LINC coordinators answer, telling of children like the little girl on Sheppard’s mind, whose cold shoulder, she knew, had something to do with the death of her brother, her grief, her need for a safe place — and they call out the names, like Leona.

“This is Leona’s heart,” Wade says.

They talk of children like the little boy that Von Hofman and Gonzalez were thinking of, whose difficulties they know are rooted in his moves from foster home to foster home, calling out a name like Manny.

“This is Manny’s heart.”

Throughout the pages of Character Counts training, there are deep lessons — ways to teach and share and live all six of the pillars:

Trustworthiness

Respect

Responsibility

Fairness

Caring

Citizenship

The program, created by the Josephson Institute and based now at the Ray Center at Drake University, encourages teachers to be creative in how they inspire children — and themselves — to contemplate moral truths that are the essence of good character.

Their website provides support materials and program ideas. And LINC’s team builds their own games and lesson plans, unique to the experiences at each of the more than 50 LINC Caring Communities programs across six school districts.

Suddenly, Wade is tearing the big red heart into shreds.

He had asked his audience to call out words children hear that beat them down, the belittling and demeaning reprimands that hurt. With each one, Wade tears out another piece, rip by rip, and very quickly a pile of red scraps lies at his feet.

A volunteer from the audience scoops it all up — little Billy’s heart, little Amy’s heart — and is directed to a nearby table with tape to begin patching it back together. It’s crude and slow, and soon more volunteers are sent to help.

The lesson comes clear.

Many children come to our classes with vulnerable hearts. And our own careless or purposeful barbs — flung from adults and other children — can shred them in a flash.

But the work of restoring a child’s heart takes time and persistence. It takes all of the characteristics in the pillar of caring that Wade recites as the meticulous heartmenders patch and tape:

Compassion. Empathy. Kindness. Consideration. Forgiveness. Love . . .

- - -

Hear now the voices of children. This is how, in memorized recitation, many LINC children stamp Character Counts! to their day:

I pledge to be a Kid for Character.

I will be worthy of trust.

I will be respectful and responsible, doing what I must.

I will always act with fairness.

I will show that I care.

I will be a good citizen and always do my share.

The real impact, of course, comes from the lessons and the before- and after-school program experiences that LINC builds around the pledge.

It’s all about sparking conversations, Wade said. Getting children to think in directions they haven’t thought before.

One session might start with a classic morality tale like “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.”

“What happens when you tell lies?” he said. “What is trustworthiness?”

Another lesson might have the children divide into four different corners based on something benign like favorite color or favorite food — and then, with a roll of the dice, one group is out and has to sit down. Then come discussions of fairness and respect for others and appreciating diversity and differences.

“It teaches morals,” Wade said. “It’s a chance for students to start thinking on their own . . . (and) get some of the social, emotional learning that they are missing.”

Some LINC Caring Communities sites have been using Character Counts! for more than a decade. Wade, after getting special training in 2015, has helped LINC spread the program across all of its Caring Communities.

That’s a lot of patchwork hearts.

- - -

The ragged, tape-strapped conglomeration of red paper isn’t pretty. Its creators, after many minutes of diligent work, display it somewhat sheepishly to the LINC audience in the auditorium.

But a cheer goes up. Everyone applauds.

It’s not perfect. It strains to capture the right shape. It’s a bit shrunken. But there is no doubt: it is a heart.

Throughout the room, the LINC team members imagine the work ahead. They see themselves as the caretakers of hearts.

Sheppard sees again the face of the 10-year-old girl she had thought of at the beginning who had lost her brother.

She remembers when she took the girl aside and sat with her, letting her know that grief looks different for everybody, letting her know that Sheppard’s office would be a safe place, whenever and for however long she needed it.

“There is no time limit,” she told the girl. “Just time.”

Von Hofman and Gonzalez see again the often-disruptive fifth-grade boy who had been through so many foster homes — who seemed determined at first to not talk with either of them.

They set boundaries and expectations for behavior, but layered it with encouragement and praised him for his strengths.

Bit by bit, piece by piece, he came to trust them. He felt their love.

This is our heart.

By Joe Robertson/LINC Writer